Contrast and Compare: Contemplation and its Counterfeit

‘Contrast and compare’ was a commonly used phrase used by the teachers who set our examination papers when I was at school. It is one of the best ways of highlighting and explaining a word or a truth by differentiating it from another, especially its opposite. That is why I will now compare and contrast the words meditation and contemplation, as used in the authentic Catholic mystical tradition, with the way they are misused by many pseudo mystics today. This is especially true of those who teach techniques that promise to lead others into instant mystical experience.

True Contemplation is a pure gift of God

Fr Keating, the renowned exponent of ‘centering prayer’ would take great pride in describing how he would arrive at a parish one day and on his departure the following day, he would leave all the congregation ‘contemplating’. This is quite impossible as the ancient Catholic tradition and teaching of the Church from the beginning, insists. Contemplation is a pure gift of God through which the infused virtues on which sanctity depends, are communicated to the receiver in years rather than months. Centering prayer is but a modern form of the old heresy of semi-Pelagianism that teaches that we can do by our own endeavour what can only be done by the action of The Holy Spirit after many years of authentic prayer, meditation and purifying contemplation. This is the clear teaching of the great mystical doctors of the Church. Christianity is not about magic but love, and love has to be learned in years of practising selflessness by carrying a daily cross and living what the first Christians called white martyrdom. As this is first practised inside daily prayer, we become sufficiently prepared and purified to participate in Christ’s contemplation of his Father. That is why St Angela of Foligno calls prayer the school of divine love.

It is understandable that in an age when people want instant pleasure in all they seek, they can be deceived into believing that the endless repetition of a word can enable them to experience mystical contemplation as described in Interior Castle by the great mystical doctor of the Church, St Teresa of Avila. It was only after the age of forty that St Teresa began to experience the contemplation that Fr Keating and his associates taught could be attained all but instantly. In his great book Enthusiasm, Monsignor Ronald Knox puts his finger on what vitiates all these movements that seek instant contemplation. They want to enjoy mystical experiences without the requisite ascetical preparation. They want to share in Christ’s Risen life without sharing in his death and they want to follow him all the way to Easter day without carrying the cross that he asks his followers to carry day after day.

Centering prayer or Instant Contemplation

At the same time that Fr Keating and his followers were discovering and spreading centering prayer or instant contemplation in the USA, Mr John Main was learning Yoga meditation techniques from a Yoga master, Swami Satyananda in Malaya whilst working in the British Colonial service as a layman in India. On returning to England he became a Benedictine monk at Ealing Abbey in London. Without any training in authentic mystical theology he began to read some of the works of authentic Catholic mystical authors, cherry-picking and misinterpreting random quotations to authenticate his meditation techniques. He taught the traditional practice of a Hindu mantra, the uninterrupted listening to the mantra, for which he substituted a Christian word. The only major difference between him and those teaching centering prayer is, that what he calls meditation they call contemplation, although from his writing it is quite clear that he equates what he calls meditation with what the authentic Catholic tradition has always called contemplation. Despite their subtle differences it is quite clear that the leaders of these two movements show no understanding of the authentic Catholic mystical tradition, nor do they teach it. My own personal study of Transcendental Meditation in the nineteen-sixties led me to conclude that both Keating and Main have both derived their New Age teaching from the same Buddhist origin. It is the ignorance of our own mystical tradition that left an unfortunate gap filled by the erroneous teaching of such people as Keating, Main, Freeman and others.

MisunderstandingThe Cloud of Unknowing

Main’s teaching contains no knowledge of mystical theology. He just handpicks from the Christian tradition what he thinks proves his own erroneous conclusions, made before he even entered the monastic life, that Christian and Hindu prayer are at heart one and the same. When he comes across this ancient teaching for the mystic way he takes it out of context and teaches people to use it immediately and continually come what may. It is for this reason that The Cloud of Unknowing is most often used as a work that confirms their erroneous teaching. But in the introduction to this work the author insists, in the strongest terms, that his work is not for beginners and should indeed be hidden from the general reader. It is only for those in the night of purification, a point in the spiritual journey that those who give out mantras know nothing about. Yet they often refer to the ‘Cloud’ as if it were their Bible.

Meditation is how Love is Generated, Not by repeating Mantras

The Apostles and the first disciples met Christ regularly on a daily basis. In coming to know him they came to love him. After the Resurrection this love enabled then not just to be close to him as before, but to enter into his new and glorified being, and into the action of his loving contemplation of God. New converts who never knew Christ were taught a new form of prayer that would enable them to do this. It was called meditation and it consisted of reading, rereading, reflecting and ruminating on the life of the most loving and adorable man who ever lived. It was here, in this new form of prayer that new Christians were able to generate a quality of loving that would enable them to be taken up into Christ as he is now, and into what he is doing now, under the influence of the Holy Spirit who inspired the scriptures in the first place. And what he is doing now is lovingly contemplating his Father and receiving the fruits of this contemplation to share with others. The first fruit of contemplation is love. It is the love that Christ as God’s son, experienced before his birth on earth in his divine nature alone. This is the purely spiritual love that bonded him to the Father from eternity. After the Resurrection this spiritual love known to us as the Holy Spirit, filtered down into and through his human nature into the human natures of others, beginning on the first Pentecost.

Love is Received by Returning Love in Kind

In all forms of love, the love of another can only be fully received in the act of returning their love in kind. In returning God’s love, our love for him is generated and deepened in meditation when we reflect and ruminate on his love, as embodied in Jesus Christ. Then, as this love cannot unite us with Christ as he once was, it leads us on, to unite us with him as he is now. The desire to seek his love in the first place rises from the very depth of our being. As God has created us in his own image and likeness, it is from here that our desire to love and be loved by infinite loving arises. It is for this reason that it can only ultimately be satisfied by God himself. Thanks to Jesus Christ this desire can finally be fulfilled. For it is he who continually pours out into our spirit his Holy Spirit, so that a new and supernatural fusion of love and loving is born, as the two become one. This loving enables us to be taken up into Christ’s own personal loving of God his Father, to receive and share with others the fruits of contemplation in this life, before experiencing them fully for themselves in the next.

Sharing in the Fruits of Contemplation

In whatever way prayer begins and develops at the outset, it always leads to the profound prayer that yearns for the fullness of love that will enable us to enter ever more fully into Christ’s contemplation of the Father. It is for this that God has created us from the beginning. It never was nor ever could be an optional extra for a few ‘pious souls’. Nevertheless, this was for years the conventional wisdom of the spiritually deprived who have been infected for generations by the false propaganda of the anti-mystical lobby. Their work still lives on as part of the DNA of so many clerical teachers and spiritual directors, positively preventing many from learning the true love that is brought to perfection in mystical contemplation. Sharing in Christ’s contemplation further enables us to receive and then share with others the fruits of Contemplation, making us the instruments through which God’s plan to share his life and love with others is brought about.

A New Supernatural Fusion of Love

I was in the middle of a talk on prayer when the parish priest who was also the Prior of the community interrupted me. ‘What about the sacraments, the liturgy and what about the Mass’? he said. Are not these the most important means through which Christ communicates his love to us. Of course there is only one answer, ‘Yes, absolutely’. But what is it that is continually available to us through the liturgy and the Mass and the other sacraments? It is the love of God. Now like any other form of love his love can only be received by those who continually generate the only love that can open them to receive it. I have called this special form of love a supernatural fusion of love, because it is formed when human and divine love become as one in prayer. In the very act of us trying to raise our hearts and minds to God in prayer his Holy Spirit is able to penetrate and permeate our love with his own, making possible what is totally impossible without it. What is possible now since Jesus sent out the Holy Spirit is that his Spirit mingles, mixes and then merges with our Spirit to suffuse and surcharge our love with his love. This enables us to be open to and receive the infinite love of God in whatever measure we have been prepared and purified to receive it.

Although it is true that the Mass, the liturgy and the sacraments are the main means by which God’s love is offered to us, they are not magic. Unless we generate the sort of love in prayer that I have been speaking about then we cannot receive his love, nor therefore can it have any influence for the better on our spiritual lives. Prayer is where we practise in our spiritual lives the love that I have been describing that can alone open us to the only love that will restore us to full health, and even raise us from the dead. This can never happen through saying mantras. If the repetition of a word a phrase or a sentence is used to raise our hearts and minds to God then we are practising genuine Christian Prayer. If however the repetition of a word a phrase or a sentence is used to induce satisfying states of psychological inner calm and composure we are practising genuine transcendental meditation. The first leads us to place our attention totally on God, the second to place our attention totally on ourselves! Anyone who believes and teaches that this profound union can take place by merely reciting mantras has completely lost their spiritual bearings betraying an utter ignorance of the Catholic Mystical tradition.

18 Comments

Sue Morris
on 7 April, 2020 at 12:00 pm

Dear David

Thank you very much for your writing which has helped me greatly. I came across one of your books about a year ago and read every one I could find one after the other. I just want to say how very relieved and encouraged I was to read your positive words about the Jesus Prayer in this article.

There is a real need for writing and communication that builds a bridge to the mystical tradition and teaching of the Church. Your writing helped me enormously with this, and in the last few weeks I’ve been reading a couple of books by Dan Burke which have led me to the Spiritual Direction and Avila Institute websites. It was good to find you there!

When I started to read the criticism of Fr John Main’s Christian meditation and Centering Prayer in these websites, I wondered if it might also include the Jesus Prayer, and felt troubled that a form of prayer I’ve found beneficial might also be deemed something to avoid.

I came to the Catholic Church in part through Fr John Main’s teaching of Christian meditation, which I learned not as a short cut to spiritual perfection, but more as a simple prayer that could gradually help a person to be still and seek God.

Fr John Main usually recommended the Aramaic word “Maranatha” for meditation, taken from the end of the book of the Apocalypse, which I understand means “Come, Lord”, or “Come Lord Jesus” if the Biblical context is taken into account.

After a few years I didn’t feel comfortable with the culture of the World Community for Christian Meditation from which I learned this prayer. I changed to the Jesus Prayer and felt on safe ground with it instinctively, but it’s not easy navigating through prayer and the interior life on one’s own. I now don’t feel entirely clear about the difference between these forms of prayer, except that the Jesus Prayer contains the holy name of Jesus, is a doxology, contains a petition and is also penitential, so it is much richer and fuller. Perhaps this is the important thing. But people can shorten the Jesus Prayer further, sometimes even just to the name of Jesus, and then the differences become more blurred to me. Perhaps the essential difference is the name of Jesus, by which we can be saved.

I don’t wish to return to the prayer taught by Fr John Main and by the grace of God I have begun meditation using Fr Gabriel’s beautiful book Divine Intimacy. But I can’t help wondering why a person sincerely and lovingly asking the Lord Jesus to come to them in Fr John Main’s prayer, is so very different in principle from the psalms or the Jesus Prayer. I am happy to be put right, or be pointed in the right direction, if this is not too much trouble.

Anyway, I’m sorry to ramble on. God bless you for all the work you do. Wishing you a blessed Holy Week and good health to you and your family.

Dear Sue,
Thank you for your detailed and important comment which will help many people. I am so pleased you are persevering in your quest for authentic prayer which leads to union. When you are saying the Jesus prayer, either as a full sentence or as a simple phrase or word, you are raising your heart and mind to God. But if a person is using this or any phrase to attain pleasant states of inner peace, then this state of inner peace can never be equated with mystical experience or contemplation which is pure gift. It can never be attained by using the centering or John Main meditation techniques.
God bless you and your family this Easter tide,
David

Dear David
Thank you for your reply which is helpful and encouraging. I appreciate it very much.
There is a deep treasury for us in the mystical and spiritual teachings of the Church and so many of us don’t even know what we are missing. I’m glad that you continue to make this accessible to others by explaining it and most of all, by telling us that it’s there. It’s like having treasure under the bed without realising. I may have got this idea from one of your books and forgotten exactly where it came from!
God bless you and your family this Easter tide,
Sue

Dear Sue,
Probably from ‘How to Pray’ when the carpenter finds the treasure he spent his life searching for under his very hearth.
You see very clearly that this is the only way forward. God bless you and your loved ones during this Easter tide and keep you safe.
David

When I was a secular Carmelite, both centering prayer, and Christian meditation were recommended. I found both troubling for many of the reasons that you have stated in your blog. I have floundered around trying this and that for some time. I just read your earlier book The Hermit. My spiritual director gave it to me, and parts of it really resonated. I’m going to go with that approach to prayer for the time being. I wish that book and the other two in the trilogy were still available. Which of your more recent books would you most recommend to help me on that path?

Geraldine, please persevere in authentic prayer. The Trilogy explains the journey in prayer. I have now edited the three books, the Hermit, the Prophet and the Mystic and they are produced in one volume as ‘Wisdom from the Western Isles’ which you will find on this blog under publications. You will find this book answers many of your questions. I have also just completed a course in prayer that explains first beginnings, progressing to mystical contemplation. You can find part one on https://spiritualdirection.com/author/david-torkington/page/7 It will be available in book form quite soon and this will contain all you need to understand the journey in prayer and how to practise it. Thank you for your comment and God bless you.

Thank you so much for your kind reply David. Am I correct in equating what Peter Calvay is talking about in chapter 8 of The Hermit with Lectio Divina? I had wanted to include that, but prioritizing was a problem. I was trying to do Christian meditation as taught by James Finley, a student of Thomas Merton. I find it quite difficult. I have tried Peter’s suggestions for a few days now and find it much easier. Many blessings on you.

Geraldine, it does not surprise me that you found Christian meditation as taught by James Finley difficult. James Finley is known for his adherence to Centering Prayer. After 1960 Thomas Merton’s writings were influenced by Budhhist teaching and this is reflected in his writings, his teaching and followers. You may wish to read the following chapter on my course on prayer that describes Lectio Divina. https://spiritualdirection.com/2018/09/13/from-meditation-to-contemplation-part-12-mini-course-on-prayer God bless you specially in your quest for the Truth.

David, I have read your mini course on prayer, Parts 1 to 6. I also read Part 12 from the link you sent me. But I don’t seem to be able to access Part 7, and 8 – 11. When I go to Part 7 from Part 6 it says the page doesn’t exist.
On another note, I have been using the prayer outline sound in The Hermit, and finding it works better for me than anything else I have tried. I do adapt it somewhat as I pray the Morning Offering when I get up, whereas my prayer time is a little later. I also try to pray the Examen prayer at night, making that part of Peter’s Blue Print redundant.

Thank you David for your clarity in defining what I call “imitations of prayer” which I have practiced in my seeking of God. None of them were fulfilling but God in his love for me led me to St. Teresa & St. John of the Cross’s teachings, to the truth!

In my seeking I have also practiced the Jesus Prayer which I still pray, it just shows up in me and am asking what or where would this come in with Mystical Tradition since it comes from our Desert Fathers. I ask because Centering Prayer also claims this prayer in its teaching.

Thank you for your wisdom. If you have already written on this please refer me.

Dear Margaret,
Thank you for your very special comment. I think the best way to answer you is to refer you to the course I did on Dan Burke’s site, spiritualdirection.com. I think what may answer your question best is the following https://spiritualdirection.com/2019/10/05/how-to-pray-in-mystical-contemplation-part-3-mini-course-on-prayer-part-52
The Jesus prayer raises the heart and mind to God. But the purpose of mantras or centering prayer is to generate, not the love of God but pleasant states of inner peace, wrongly equated with mystical experience or contemplation.
The course I serialized on Dan’s site describes the whole journey in prayer from beginnings to mystical contemplation and gives advice on how to pray in each stage and is best read in sequence It will be published very soon as a book, but the course on the site is virtually the same with some additions and clarifications in the book.
I hope this helps and thank you for your valuable contribution.
David

Thank you David. I’m so especially glad to have read this on Valentines Day! The greatest joy and happiness possible in this life sounds so real and attainable expressed in this clear and lucid way. I am encouraged to persevere. Thank God for you and the gift that your writing brings to our lives.